Florida mother, 43, ‘choked, tortured and starved her teenage children for more than 8 years while her husband stood by and did nothing’

A mother starved, beat and tortured her two-16-year-old children for more than eight years, police have said. Jamie Marie Hicks, 43, allegedly inflicted cruelty on the two children at her home in North Tampa, Florida while their stepfather, 53-year-old Vernon Courtney Lovell, looked on and did nothing. She hit them with various objects, choked them to the point of unconsciousness and held their heads under water, according to a police report reported in the Tampa Bay Times. She also withheld food from them for up to three days at a time, they told police, and on other occasions, she fed them spoiled food or made them regurgitate food and then eat it again. READ MORE HERE